Adela Akers
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Adela Akers (February 7, 1933 – August 9, 2023) was a Spanish-born
textile Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, and different types of #Fabric, fabric. ...
and fiber artist residing in the United States. She was Professor Emeritus (1972 to 1995) at the
Tyler School of Art The Tyler School of Art and Architecture is part of Temple University, a large, urban, public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Tyler currently enrolls about 1,350 undergraduate students and about 200 graduate st ...
. Her career as an artist spans the "whole history of modern fiber art." Her work is in the
Renwick Gallery The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum located in Washington, D.C. that displays American craft and decorative arts from the 19th to 21st century. The gallery is housed in a National Historic Landmark building that ...
, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
and the
Museum of Art and Design The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), based in Manhattan, New York City, collects, displays, and interprets objects that document contemporary and historic innovation in craft, art, and design. In its exhibitions and educational programs, the ...
. Her papers (dating from 1960 to 2009) are at the
Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...
.


Early life and education

Akers was born on February 7, 1933, in
Santiago de Compostela, Spain Santiago de Compostela, simply Santiago, or Compostela, in the province of A Coruña, is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral ...
. She was raised in Cuba, her mother was a trained seamstress, and later she and her husband had a small import business in
Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...
. Akers' exposure to business practices through her family helped her later in life to run her own small art business. She has one brother who later became an accountant in
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
. Akers graduated from the
University of Havana The University of Havana (UH; ) is a public university located in the Vedado district of Havana, the capital of Cuba. Founded on 5 January 1728, the university is the oldest in Cuba, and one of the first to be founded in the Americas. Originall ...
with a degree in
Pharmacy Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medication, medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it ...
. She had wanted to have a practical job, especially because her parents had helped her get through school. However, later, Akers found she was bored with pharmacy work. In Havana, she met a group of artists who called themselves Los Once (The Eleven) who encouraged her to make art. Akers started taking art classes because of the suggestion of Los Once and she went to study in Chicago in 1957. She studied at the
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...
, even though at first her English wasn't as strong as she wished. At the Institute she was introduced to weaving. Later she studied at
Cranbrook Academy of Art The Cranbrook Academy of Art, a graduate school for architecture, art, and design, was founded by George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth in 1932. It is the art school of the Cranbrook Educational Community. Located in Bloomfield Hills, Mi ...
where she finished in 1963. She was a weaver-in-residence at
Penland School of Crafts The Penland School of Craft ("Penland" and formerly "Penland School of Crafts") is an Arts and Crafts educational center located in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Penland, North Carolina, in the Snow Creek Township near Spruce Pine, about 50 mil ...
. In 1965, she went to a small town, Chota, in northern
Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...
with a government program as a weaving advisor. Akers died on August 9, 2023.


Artwork and career

Her weavings consist of zigzags, checkerboard patterns, and simple geometric shapes. Akers’s work has been influenced and informed by pre-Columbian textiles and paintings by women of the
Mbuti The Mbuti people, or Bambuti, are one of several indigenous pygmy groups in the Congo region of Africa. Their languages are Central Sudanic languages and Bantu languages. Subgroups Bambuti are pygmy hunter-gatherers, and are one of the oldest ...
(Ituri Forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Pre-Columbian work, especially appealed to Akers because she saw math and geometry in it. Akers was also very attached to using a loom for the same reasons, because the loom is very mathematical. Journeying from one point to another has been a physical and transformative reality in her life, increasing her self-confidence and expanding her vision of the world. These geographical voyages have enabled her to experience the broad horizons and quiet strength of country living, the power of nature, and the palpitating rhythm of cities. While travel has enlarged her perspective, her work expresses the sense of journey itself, rather than alluding to a specific site or sense of place. Akers worked in series, with each piece informing the next.


Exhibitions

*2014 "August Artist-in-Residence: Adela Akers: Traced Memories" Fine Art Museum of San Francisco *2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 Fiber Biennials at Snyderman-Works Galleries, Philadelphia PA * 2010 Sonoma County Museum * 2010 "The 49th Anniversary Show" Triangle Gallery * 2008 "Ashes to Art", The Gallery at FUNERIA * 1991
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...
* 1986
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1805, it is the longest continuously operating art museum and art school in the United States. The academy's museum ...
* 1982
Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...
* 1982
Cooper–Hewitt, National Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum at the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 Smithsonian Institution museums and one of three Smithsonian facil ...


References


External links


"Oral history interview with Adela Akers, 2008 Mar. 4-6"
''
Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washing ...
'' *
"Adela Akers"
Ilana Stanger, ''New York Foundation for the Arts''
Snyderman-works.com Artists - Snyderman-Works Galleries
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Akers, Adela 1933 births 2023 deaths 20th-century Spanish women artists 21st-century Spanish women artists American weavers People from Santiago de Compostela Spanish emigrants to the United States 20th-century American women textile artists People from Guerneville, California Spanish textile artists Fellows of the American Craft Council